


wild against the wild

by blackkat



Series: Marvel Drabbles [9]
Category: Marvel, Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Friendship, Humor, Insensitivity to mental health issues, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28252539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Khonshu is planning something.Marc can feel it like an itch against his skin, a toothy grin pressed into his bones. Khonshu is all dark intent and darker glee, and Marc opens his eyes in the shadowy bedroom of Steven’s rundown old mansion and curses before he’s even fully awake.
Relationships: Marc Spector/Matt Murdock/Clint Barton
Series: Marvel Drabbles [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1422472
Comments: 18
Kudos: 389





	wild against the wild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CherFleur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherFleur/gifts).



Khonshu is planning something.

Marc can feel it like an itch against his skin, a toothy grin pressed into his bones. Khonshu is all dark intent and darker glee, and Marc opens his eyes in the shadowy bedroom of Steven’s rundown old mansion and curses before he’s even fully awake.

“ _Spider-Man_ tried to kick my ass yesterday,” he complains, rolling over and dragging the worn comforter up over his head. “Can't you give the asshole thing a rest for even one day?”

The drag of Khonshu's bony fingers over the headboard rattles like bones, and it wouldn’t be out of place in a horror movie. A _bad_ horror movie. “ ** _But it’s not day, my son_** ,” Khonshu says, and Marc knows him, knows those words are _absolutely_ a taunt. “ ** _It’s a beautiful night, and the moon is full. There's no telling what you might find on your rounds_**.”

“Yes there is,” Marc says crankily, but he shoves himself up, rolls out of bed. Khonshu doesn’t look like Bushman minus a face, doesn’t look like half-burned Marlene in a pretty pink slip, and that means he’s in the closest thing to a generous mood that he gets. “I'm going to find Spider-Man, and he’s going to try and toss me into the river again. And if something radioactive tries to eat me, you're just going to sit on your ass and laugh.”

Khonshu chuckles, which is hardly a denial. “ ** _How are you feeling, my knight?_** ” he asks, and that’s a taunt too, by the tone. Marc can't figure out what it’s a taunt _about_ , though, and he frowns at Khonshu as he pulls on a shirt. His knees ache, but he knows Khonshu doesn’t care about that. His ribs ache, too, and there’s probably an imprint of knuckles between his shoulder blades where he and Daredevil got into it, but—that was practically play-fighting for Daredevil. Kind of like the toll for working in Hell’s Kitchen.

“Like Daredevil punched me in the spine,” Marc says, wary and not about to trust Khonshu further than he can throw him.

Khonshu's eyes glow in empty sockets, as bright as the moon outside the window. “ ** _That is indeed how_ you _are feeling, Marc._** ”

Oh no.

Marc freezes, halfway into his suit, and stares at Khonshu, somewhere between incredulous and horrified. He probably _shouldn’t_ be, because Khonshu is a bastard at the best of times, but­—

“Fuck you,” he says, a kneejerk reaction that’s as automatic as breathing at this point. Hauling his suit up just far enough to cover his boxers, he spins, stalks to the wide double windows, and shoves them open so hard they slam into the stone of the walls with a dangerous crack. One rebounds, almost taking Marc out as he shoves his head outside, and he yelps, shoves it away, and swears as he presses a hand to the lump that’s forming above his eyebrow.

“ ** _Careful, Marc_** ,” Khonshu says gleefully from over his shoulder. “ ** _I wouldn’t want the other gods to find out my Fist was done in by a window—_** ”

“I hope Set pantses you,” Marc tells him spitefully, and leans out again. The mansion is completely deserted, looks entirely abandoned from the outside, which is just how Marc likes it no matter what fits Steven pitches. Steven has the townhouse, anyway, and Netta and Samuels. This dump can be Marc's.

There are people beyond the walls, though. A deliveryman on an electric bike, worried about his dog. A jogger thinking about the rock in her shoe. A SHIELD agent near the gates of the mansion, absolutely certain he’s at the wrong place. But Marc _shouldn’t_ know that. He should have no idea that the agent is considering how to tell Captain America that he got lost in the suburbs, and whether he should just fake his death instead. Marc's made a fucking point of _not_ feeling anything for a solid _decade_ now, and having that suddenly gone—

“Where the _fuck_ ,” he says loudly, “are my _shields_?”

Khonshu's chuckle is low and rolling and delighted, the cheerful rattle of dry bones over glittering stone. “ ** _Maybe you misplaced them_** ,” he suggests.

Marc _growls_ , incredulous, _furious_ , and rounds on his god, ready to see how many swings it will take to break that damned beak. “I can't be a _Guide_! There are already enough damn people in my head! You can't shove _more_ in there and expect me to—”

Khonshu looms over him, Khonshu _leans in_ , and suddenly it’s not a skeletal bird head above a white suit. Suddenly it’s Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, all three of them blurring together in front of Marc's eyes.

“ ** _For someone who doesn’t want to be a Guide, you certainly have a type_** ,” Khonshu says, smug enough that Marc almost tries taking a swing at him anyway. “ ** _They're all perfect model Sentinels, aren’t they?_** ”

“Logan’s not a perfect model _anything_ except a perfect model asshole,” Marc gets out, but—even if they're just Khonshu's illusions, he can _feel_ them. The strongest Sentinels he’s ever met, magnetic in a way that even Marc, a shitty Guide even when he doesn’t have his shields locked down tighter than Fort Knox, can't quite resist. There's a reason he always answers Cap’s calls, a reason he tends to let Spider-Man chase him out of Queens without too much of a fight or lets Logan muscle in on his missions. Sentinels just _feel_ good in his head, and the stronger they are the more it sways him.

That’s not the _only_ reason Marc keeps his shields up, but it’s a damned good one. And now, thanks to Khonsu, Marc doesn’t even have that much.

His breath rasps, drags out of his throat, and he closes his eyes. Grits his teeth, drags his suit the rest of the way up, and grabs his cloak where it’s draped over a dusty chair.

“The _only_ reason I'm going out is because I don’t want to deal with fucking Captain America right now,” he tells Khonshu acidly, and pulls the mask down over his face. “Because _you_ can't leave well enough alone.”

Khonshu cackles, and the window catches his image as Marc hauls himself up onto the sill. “ ** _Manhattan looks nice tonight_** ,” he says, full of glee.

“Right. Avoid Manhattan,” Marc agrees flatly, and leaps for the ground.

He lets the SHIELD agent catch a glimpse of him as he guns his motorcycle into the darkening night, but only because the kid can't plan a fake death for shit and Marc is tired of listening to him try.

Spider-Man takes one look at him and misses his swing.

Marc, hunkered down with the gargoyles high up on the tallest and emptiest building he can find, rolls his eyes so hard it _hurts_ , but he’s not annoyed enough to move from the one spot he’s finally found that keeps the noise of New York down to a dull roar. There's a high yelp, a familiar _thwip_ , a thud, and a moment later Spider-Man sling-shots himself up onto the gargoyle looming over Marc's head and sticks there.

“ _Moony_?” he asks incredulously, like some other asshole wearing all white tends to run around New York splattered with blood.

Marc doesn’t _actively_ hiss at him like the alley cat he was previously sulking with, which is probably a sign of personal growth. Jake would be proud.

“What,” Marc bites out, because he’s grown but not _that_ much. And besides, Spider-Man tried to toss him in the Hudson. If Marc didn’t have superpowers before that, he definitely would have had them afterwards.

Spider-Man drops down a few inches, the huge, blank eyes of his mask fixed on Marc. Marc can _feel_ him, and it make his skin prickle, all awareness and a greedy sort of desire to latch on. It’s not a _need_. Marc could shove him off the side of the building without a problem and get back to being harassed by Khonshu without ever thinking twice about it, but at the same time it’s a magnetic kind of pull, a _knowledge_ that if he just tried, their minds would click together—

Except they wouldn’t, because Marc is a shitty Guide even when he isn't acting directly antithetical to all of Spider-Man’s morals. And besides, Jake is about seventy-five percent convinced that Spider-Man’s Guide is actually the Human Torch, which—well. They're not exactly _subtle_ about there being something there, if that’s the case. And if it’s _not_ the case, one of them is so utterly hopeless that even _Marc_ recognizes it, which is probably a bad sign.

“Wait,” Spider-man says incredulously, and that’s not a great start. “Moony? That’s you, right? Loony Moony? I mean, you got the blood splatters down, and the walking target thing, and—”

Marc eyes the strand of webbing holding him to the gargoyle and fingers a crescent dart.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Spider-Man says, quickly raising his hands. “I was just asking, because last time I checked you weren’t a _Guide_ , Moony. I think I’d remember something like that, because Guides don’t normally go around _murdering people_ —”

“Like I would let Sentinels have all the fun,” Marc says flatly, and throws the crescent dart. Spider-Man snatches it out of the air without any seeming difficulty.

“No no no,” he says, shoving a finger at Marc. “ _You_ do not get to make _jokes_. You tried to murder ten men yesterday!”

“Mobsters,” Marc says, and he refuses to feel sorry about that. All of them hit Khonshu's radar, _and_ they’d kidnapped girls traveling at night. They would have gotten what was coming for them if Spider-Man hadn’t stopped him. “I tied to murder ten _mobsters_.”

“Men,” Spider-Man says stubbornly. “And now you’re a _Guide_? You? They _let_ psychopaths be Guides—”

“Who’s the psychopath,” a cheerful voice says, and Marc twitches hard as a body drops down right beside him. Clint manages to catch his elbow before Marc can shove him over the side of the building, and he uses that hold to grab Marc by the shoulders and haul him to his feet. “There you are, Moon Knight, come on, let’s go, Daredevil says you're not half-bad as an investigator and I need some help investigating stuff.”

“ _Illegal_ stuff?” Spider-Man asks suspiciously, sliding an inch lower on his webline.

Clint shrugs. “It’s illegal stuff someone else is doing,” he says, which is a neat sidestep, and makes Marc rather more inclined to be manhandled. So does the way Clint reaches out and deftly plucks the crescent dart from Spider-man’s fingers as he shoves Marc back towards the open window he used to get out here. “Later, Spidey.”

“Don’t kill anyone,” Spider-Man says unhappily, but he doesn’t stop them. Just watches, and Marc lets Clint stuff him back in through the window without protest.

Clint groans as he slides in after Marc, hauling the window shut and thoughtfully relocking it. “I swear, if that kid lands us all with _more_ sensitivity training because Tony hears him calling people loony—”

“Even if it’s _true_?” Marc mutters, pulling away from Clint and straightening his cloak as it flares around them. When he looks up, Clint is watching him, leaning back against the window.

“Spidey was right,” Clint says after a moment, and Marc tenses. “You are a Guide.”

Oh. That. With a snort, Marc pulls his hood up. “Nicely spotted,” he says flatly. “I guess they don’t call you _Hawkeye_ for nothing—”

A dime pegs him in the center of the forehead. “They don’t,” Clint says cheerfully. “So what happened? Mishap with some magical artifact? A villain strip away your shields?”

“My god is being an asshole,” Marc says grumpily, and folds his arms over his chest. It’s a little startling to realize, suddenly, that Clint is a Sentinel too. Not as strong as Spider-Man, but—noticeably. And so is the dick in the shadows behind Marc. Marc doesn’t turn, doesn’t raise his voice, but says pointedly, “He dragged me out of bed to make me run around the city after _someone_ punched me in the spine—”

“I know,” Daredevil says, a little dry. “I was there.” He skirts Marc, heading for Clint, and then turns to face him, tilting his head. “You _are_ a Guide,” he says, sounding surprised. “You never have been before.”

“I've _always_ been a Guide,” Marc says, cranky. “But I have people in my head who _aren’t_ Guides, so it’s not like I'm a good one.”

Clint hums, nudging Matt with an elbow. Matt doesn’t quite lean back but his eyeless mask turns to Marc again, and he says thoughtfully, “We fought when we were going after the Jester and I still didn’t notice.”

Marc isn't entirely sure what part of _I'm a shitty Guide_ they're not getting. “Just because you're Sentinels doesn’t mean you're smart,” he says, and Clint makes a deeply offended sound, even though he’s grinning.

“Not like we’re great Sentinels, either,” he says, but not like it bothers him. “Four out of five senses. Passing grade, but just barely.”

“Speak for yourself,” Matt says, amused. “I always got As.” He pauses, and then says deliberately, “Moon Knight, if Spider-Man is bothering you—”

“Spider-Man _always_ bothers me,” Marc mutters.

“—you should come with us,” Matt finishes, unperturbed. “Clint was actually telling the truth about investigating—”

“—I _always_ tell the truth, excuse you—”

Matt's sigh is long-suffering, and Marc can't help but snort. “Investigating _stuff_ ,” he repeats, but…at least if he tags along with Daredevil and Hawkeye, Khonshu will be entertained. And—

Marc's skin doesn’t itch around them. They're Sentinels, but not like Spider-Man or Captain America. There's no weight to it, no pressure, no expectation. Marc wants, but he can breathe through it, and it’s about as backwards as everything about Marc, but that makes him more inclined to like both of them.

“We’ll feed you cheap Chinese,” Clint wheedles. “ _And_ I’ll give Spider-Man a wedgie if he calls you names again.”

“My hero,” Marc says without inflection, and makes up his mind. “It had better be the best cheap Chinese in Queens.”

“Not Queens,” Matt says, and the face he makes is subtle, but it’s definitely there. “Hell’s Kitchen. We were on our way back.”

Manhattan. Great. So much for avoiding it to spite Khonshu. Marc stifles a sigh, resigns himself to whatever batshit thing is about to happen, and says, “Fine. Ladies first.”

Because Clint is a little bastard, he shoves Marc into the elevator ahead of them. Without hesitation, Marc fouls his feet and takes him down with him, and Clint's got an inch and about ten pounds on Marc, but Marc wrestles him down, pins him to the floor, and sits on him.

Matt eyes both of them as the elevator door closes, and Clint flails at him sadly. “ _Red_ ,” he says, pleading, and Matt taps the baton strapped to his thigh.

“Well,” he says. “I _could_ —”

Marc, more than able to see the lay of the land and never above outright cheating, says, “I'm a _Guide_. You’d gang up on a Guide?”

“You're a Guide like we’re Sentinels,” Matt says, with the implacable sort of logic that always gets him into trouble. “Of course.”

Well. Marc supposes that’s fair. It’s also more than reason enough to lunge sideways and take Matt down before he can make a move.

It works about as well as it did the _last_ time Marc tried to tackle Daredevil. But this time, at least, Clint is half an instant behind him, and he has absolutely no compunctions about helping drag Matt down to the floor.


End file.
